Delta Airlines flight forced to make U-turn after passenger suffers diarrhoea that ‘dribbled down the aisle’

A Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta to Barcelona was forced to make a U-turn after a passenger suffered horrible diarrhoea which “dribbled down the aisle” and “smelled horrible”.

According to the plane’s pilot, the aircraft was diverted as the passenger had diarrhoea “all the way through the aeroplane”.

The flight took off from Atlanta, Georgia at 8.47pm on Friday (1 September) two hours after it was scheduled to leave for Barcelona, Spain. The plane only flew for an hour before turning back to Atlanta due to a “biohazard” risk.

The pilot of the flight told air traffic control: “It’s just a biohazard issue, we had a passenger who had diarrhoea all the way through the aeroplane.”

The FAA flight strip, a small piece of paper air traffic controllers use to monitor flights, read: “Divert to ATL - passenger diarrhoea all over aircraft - biohazard”.

The flight strip was posted on Reddit while passengers took to social media to share the distressing experience.

Dee W posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that she and her partner were on the flight and it was “pretty bad”.

Dee W said: “It was dribbled down the aisle, smelled horrible. The vanilla scented disinfectant used on it only made it smell like vanilla s***.

“After the plane landed, it was thoroughly cleaned. They didn’t leave until around 2:30am. The flight was met by emergency vehicles and EMTs carried the sick passenger off the plane.

“My partner said the plane was cleaner when they got back on at 2am than it was the first time they got on. No smell either.”

The plane returned to Atlanta at 10:39pm and was cleaned out, with the flight taking off five hours later at 3am. The aircraft arrived in Barcelona eight hours late at 5:10pm.

The return flight from Barcelona to Atlanta was also delayed by eight hours.

Delta released a statement acknowledging the flight encountered an unexpected medical issue.

The airline said: “Our teams worked as quickly and safely as possible to thoroughly clean the aeroplane and get our customers to their final destination.

“We sincerely apologise to our customers for the delay and inconvenience to their travel plans,’ the airline wrote in a statement.”